Letter to my Son
Sunday, 16 June
 |
| Rush Job |
I hope that you and I will one day again be able to take walks together. Much of the energy I place into my projects is with this goal in mind. I use the hands given me to do with as best I can. There is a reason for everything we do. We don’t have to know what that reason is for this to be so. A coyote bays at the moon without considering why. What need is there for him to know? He may not even realize he’s a coyote. It doesn't matter. He is as life prescribes.
Once
again I draw pictures. It’s one of those
ventures where I don’t know what it is I am looking for except that I will know
it when I see it. That seems to be the
rule of this game. Do you find your
instincts can appear counter-intuitive to what it is you are trying to do? We can attempt the seemingly obvious yet find
it as maddeningly elusive as writing our name while viewing the results in a
mirror. Doing what we think we ought to
be doing only sends us in the opposite direction of where it is we want to be. I find myself in life time and again stubbornly
insisting on making the wrong approach. What
simple trick of the mind have I overlooked?
It
would be an easy conclusion to make that I have so far failed in what it is I
have tried to do. Failure here is a term
incorrectly applied. It is too
definitive and simple an answer to be useful.
Trying to visualize the peeled-back layers of one’s own human mind is
not like a round of horseshoes. I can be
far from my mark and still find the results interesting. In some things it is better to make the most
from an inadvertent gesture. A God-awful
choice has its own revelation. The hunch
I want myself to believe in is that the path to personal success is by way of
making a series of right disastrous choices.
I’m stuck with myself. Ugly
ducklings don’t always turn into swans. I’m
sixty-four and my use of color and form still reminds me of goulash found in an
alley behind the restaurant. It seems
evident by now that I wasn’t put on Earth to make roast duck. I’m here to convince you that corn and green
beans in tomato sauce is ravishing.
The
challenges we choose for ourselves go a long way towards defining who it is we truly
are. The clothes we wear are largely influenced
by the fashion of the time. Our pick in
career may be a muddled mix of motivations that includes mundane matters of
money and opportunity. Certainly our
choice of a spouse suggests something significant about us, though, I suspect
biology and timing play a bigger role than we would like to think. No, if you want to know who it is we really
are then look at the rock we volunteer to endlessly roll uphill. I once knew a man many years ago that had a
rare genetic defect. Each finger of his
hands was one knuckle short. Despite his
resulting limited agility and lack of reach his burning desire was to play the
piano well. He did. The result was not a repertoire of familiar
show tunes. His style suggested the
rapid course that water takes down a steep mountain stream. His was an approach to the keyboard you would
hear nowhere else. It was music of a
strange sort, but it was music.
There
is always something odd to be found in the character we each display. We may try to hide it from view because our
particular quirk appears so ridiculous, so indefensible to our own mind. Sure, someone that doesn't know us well may
have a good laugh at our expense but they haven’t had the time to sample the
savory blend of seasonings that make up our seven course personality. And yes, not everyone is going to take to us,
no matter what. We don’t all appreciate
almond slivers in rice… or whatever it is that makes your particular
psychological concoction uniquely you.
I
make pictures, though I never figured out how to draw. I love drawing though learning about it never
interested me. I just put my shoulder
into the rock, hope for the best, and start trudging uphill.
Love,
Dad
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